Welcome to this blog! Approximately every two to four weeks I will be sharing information, tips, and offers through this blog. Please feel free to contact me at artdoc11@yahoo.com with any questions or suggestions.
Why Tap Water May Be Hazardous to Your Health
If you’ve ever traveled to South or Central America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, or even to some European countries and made the mistake of drinking water directly from the tap, you may have had an unpleasant surprise. Our country’s unfiltered, chlorinated tap water seems like a blessing in light of such experiences.
Our tap water is not perfect, of course. It contains a significant amount of chlorine, a disinfectant and known carcinogen; it may have copper, cadmium, or lead from old or damaged water pipes and almost certainly contains traces of the many medications our population uses. Well water taken from aquifers near commercially-run farms, or near land-fills or factories may be dangerously toxic. Love Canal is a well-known example. President Jimmy Carter declared this site a federal emergency area in 1978.
Simply boiling your water in a pan on the stovetop for three to five minutes will do a reasonably good job of killing bacteria and removing chlorine and many heavy metal contaminants. Charcoal filters, reverse osmosis systems, and steam distillation all will remove many contaminants from tap water. By far the most difficult contaminant to remove is fluoride, a compound of fluorine. Fluorine, the first and smallest of the gaseous molecules on the elemental chart, is one of the most toxic elements on the planet. Over the past sixty years or so, fluoride compounds have been added to tap water in many cities and states as a way to reduce the incidence of cavities. These fluoride compounds are not pharmaceutical grade; they are waste products from the phosphate fertilizer industry. One of the many hazardous impurities in these waste products is arsenic, a human carcinogen with no safe level. Not only is much of our water treated with fluoride compounds; many brands of toothpaste and some foods and drinks also contain them.
Interestingly, up until the 1970’s, European physicians used fluoride as a thyroid suppressing medication for patients with hyperthyroid (over-active thyroid function). A dosage of 2 mg per day was found to be effective. Many people in this country receive more than 2 mg of this compound per day from drinking water and toothpaste. Fluoride disrupts thyroid function in many ways; check out http://rense.com/general57/FLUR.HTM for details. Fluorine and Iodine are both halogens, that is, they have similar chemical structures. Because fluorine is smaller and more active than iodine, it displaces it in the body. The thyroid gland needs iodine to function normally; fluorine won’t do. In fact, fluoride competes with TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) for receptor sites on the thyroid and thus can slow thyroid function. Most likely the ever-increasing cases of hypothyroid (under-active thyroid function) in the U.S. are due at least in part to the increase of fluoride in our bodies. Only three methods significantly reduce the amount of fluoride in water: activated alumina filters (55%), reverse osmosis (70 -95%), and steam distillation (100%).
Below are two more links of interest. http://www.fluoridealert.org/50-reasons.htmhttp://www.consumerhealth.org/articles/display.cfm?ID=19990817225011
Share my blog/website at ewagnerholistichealth.com with others. The offer with this blog: if you suffer from hypothyroid function and want to correct this holistically, contact me for a consult and possible help through chiropractic, diet, herbs, acupuncture, and more.
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